


Cute as a Button

by aistifcisi



Category: Coraline (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coraline Accepts, For Halloween, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Mild Swearing, Non-Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aistifcisi/pseuds/aistifcisi
Summary: This was all her fault.
Relationships: Mrs. Lovat & Wybie Lovat
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	Cute as a Button

This was all her fault.

It was the sole thought running through her head as the questioning continued, simply dragging on and on in a vain, desperate hope that the case of one Coraline Jones wouldn’t go cold. It was all for nought, she knew. The girl was gone, dead; but she had not moved on. Oh no, she could never move on, nor could she return to them, to the real world, to her family. She was another now, a mere husk, something to be used until nothing but the tortured soul was left behind. _And it was all Mara’s fault._

God, why, _why_ had she ever allowed the Jones’ to move in? Why hadn’t she denied them that accursed apartment? She could have prevented this, all of it, and yet...

She didn’t tell the men in her home the truth. What would possibly come of that, other than Mara seeming like a senile old bat, after all? It was over. That goddamn thing behind the walls of the Pink Palace, just whatever spawn of hell it truly was, had won yet again, and they would never get Coraline back from it. The child could never open her eyes, not anymore. The officers left soon after they had arrived, just as clueless as they had been before they had come.

“Grandma?” a hesitant voice spoke from behind. Mara turned to her grandson, her sweet, dear Wyborn. It had always been _his_ safety she had feared for... and what a fool she had been. The Beldam never played fair. She knew this. She had experienced this, directly. So why hadn’t she seen this coming? Why had she assumed the witch's eyes were dead set on her child; that she could never possibly turn them to someone else’s...? “I- I, got your doll back...” 

Indeed, there the supposed children’s toy was, nestled in Wyborn’s timidly raised hand, looking up at her with those eyes. Those fucking buttons... She swiftly walked up to him and swiped the thing from his grasp, before fixing it with a harsh, unforgiving glare. She felt her grandson take a few steps back, whether from shock, fear or, perhaps, a combination of both, she could not tell.

It was utter silence for the longest of time, with neither of them moving a single muscle. Nothing dared to disturb the haunting tranquility. Nothing, but the irregular crackling of the fireplace that is. Mara always had know that this was what had to be done. She had never been able to. This was the last thing she had left. Of _her._ She hadn’t ever managed to gather the courage, to bring herself to part with it. 

Now, though... she was tired, she was grieving, all anew, too. She didn’t care anymore. The doll wasn’t even her sister anymore. It was Coraline. She fed the thing to the flames with an ease she had begged and prayed for only months before, and watched as shorter blue hair (in place of twin braids) burned into ashes. 

She did feel guilt and regret, she realized then, just not for the desecration of the doll. She felt her eyes well up as she chocked on her blame, and the full weight of the situation finally settled down in the pit of her stomach. Wyborn might have been the one to give up the doll to the Beldam’s newest victim, but it was still she who had allowed for the spy to continue its existence. And all for what? Sentimentality, and for the thing that had shepherded her own sister to her demise, no less. She had doomed someone else, yet another child, with her irresponsible selfishness.

_‘This is all my fault.’_

“Grandma,” her grandson called out to her then, in worry, in terror, for confirmation, “she’s not coming back, is she?”

Mara Lovat could only answer with a sob.

**Author's Note:**

> Haha, absolutely no one is gonna see nor read this, buuuuttt I don't care so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Happy Halloween ya'll


End file.
